“The city has a unique disposition. It has a lot of infrastructure works that is coming up and is a major destination for investors. We have sporting facilities and a lot of social initiatives are also being taken up, such as the construction of toilets. The credit goes to corporation officials who are working hard. Also, it is the collective responsibility of citizens to also come up with cleanliness initiatives and help make our city cleaner,” Raina said.

“I am a resident of Ghaziabad and in whatever I have achieved, I have always remembered the contribution of the city. It is my responsibility to help fellow citizens and officials to spread awareness so that developmental works (related to cleanliness) bring positive results and improve the city. As a brand ambassador alone, I cannot bring much change. It has to be done with everyone’s participation and by working together,” he said.

He also expressed concerns over the prevailing pollution level, especially after Diwali. He said that he has several matches lined up but came to the city as the mission is among his priorities.

“We are expecting that the entire country will become open defecation-free by October 2018. In this context, the Ghaziabad municipal corporation has exceeded its target of construction of toilets. They have constructed nearly 300 community toilets against the target of 275. Against the target of 1,288 public toilets, the corporation has constructed 1,600,” Jindal said.

He said the corporation recently started the door-to-door collection of solid waste and the important activity of segregation at source will also be implemented in the next couple of months.

“If people can segregate solid waste at home in two different bins, (blue for non-biodegradable and green for biodegradable), nearly 50% problems related to solid waste will automatically be solved,” he said.

Ghaziabad, at present, generates nearly 950 metric tonnes of daily solid waste and disposes most of it at a temporary landfill site at Pratap Vihar. The proposal for construction of a waste-to-energy plant at Galand is in the pipeline and a firm will be selected for the construction soon, officials said.